Chrysler's Crowned King - Chrysler Imperial Crown

Big, stylish and well appointed, the Imperial Crowns of the 1960s were the ultimate drivers' luxury car

Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

If you were Chrysler, whose Imperial line was in a constant battle with Lincoln for second place behind Cadillac at the top of the luxury market, what could you do? Imperial was already as fine a car as you could make it, buzzing with luxury, technological innovation, craftsmanship and power. So Chrysler created a badge and trim level to add even more allure: the Crown.

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At the time of the name's introduction in 1940, Crown was applied to long-wheelbase automobiles, originally all closed cars. But by 1960, the scene had changed. Catalog models were on the same 129-inch wheelbase as other Imperials, with a special-order, $16,000 limousine handbuilt by Ghia in Italy on a 149.5-inch wheelbase. Confusingly, even for Imperial fans, the limousine was always "Crown Imperial," while Sixties cars were all "Imperial Crown." Both used the new 413-cu.in. wedge V-8 in place of the Fifties-era Hemi engine, but kept body-on-frame construction in place of the unit-body all other new Chryslers shared. With Forward-Look styling dating from 1957, Crowns could be had in four-door sedan; two- and four-door Southampton hardtop; and the Crown-only convertible coupe. The 17 available colors tended "toward iridescent and pastel shades of bronze, mauve and turquoise," according to Chrysler.
With a few exceptions over the next decade, Crowns were either hardtops or convertibles, and in 1960, the four-door Crown Southampton the most popular choice, with 4,765 sold. Richard Nixon was seen in various Crowns about the country, as were dignitaries and celebrities the world over. Crown seats featured six inches of foam padding with steam-fitted upholstery, and each car was comprehensively inspected and road tested before delivery.
The 1961 Imperials received distinctive "floating" headlamps and a new instrument panel, but they were largely unchanged, as were sales. But stylist Virgil Exner's wild fins were not for everyone, and when he departed Chrysler that year, successor Elwood Engel was ready to take a new direction.
At first, Engel's 1962 Imperials only toned down the Exner-styled models, rather than completely redesigning them. The 413-cu.in. V-8 actually lost 10hp, dropping to 340hp, but had a stomping 470-lbs.ft. of torque. It was detuned to make the driving experience even more relaxed, while a modified pushbutton TorqueFlite automatic transmission was lighter and smaller. The series SY-1-M 1962 Imperial Crowns also retained the 129-inch wheelbase and freestanding headlamps of their predecessors. But they lost the big fins, with an all-new rear-end treatment easily identified by freestanding gunsight taillamps. Like the taillamps, a new split grille also recalled the 1955-'56 Imperials, but Exner's pod-mounted headlamps and an interior distinguished by a squared-off steering wheel remained.
As usual, the Crown received almost every luxury touch Chrysler had: six-way seats, power windows, power brakes, triple cigarette lighters, you name it. Crown convertibles also received a standard full leather interior, and most buyers went further and optioned their cars heavily with power seats, air conditioning, leather interiors, 45 RPM record player and custom colors.
Regardless of whether Engel's intent was for the 1962 model to be a stopgap on the way to an all-new car, or if this was the design he was after, it worked: Between the modern look and a major advertising campaign, sales jumped to the tune of 145 percent, for the top-selling four-door Crown Southampton.
It didn't hurt that they were just plain great cars. Driving the 1962 Imperial Crown, veteran journalist and serial big Chrysler owner Tom McCahill called it "the best sedan made in the world today," and when we tested the Crown Convertible in 1990 (SIA #120), we tended to agree: Thanks to torsion-bar suspension, "Handling is probably the best of the big cars," wrote John Tennyson. "There is no other luxury car quite like it."
After the successful 1962 redesign, 1963 Imperials remained very similar. Most noticeable among the revamps was the repositioning of the taillamps to a conventional perch on the tops of the fenders. The roofline was also subtly altered; combined with a lower transmission tunnel and higher rear seats, this added 4.5 inches of rear legroom. Even finer materials still were employed in the interior. Amazingly, the potent engine and 2.93 rear gearing allowed the 5,000-plus pound car to return 15 MPG on the highway while capable of a 110 MPH top speed. Motor Trend advised buyers to get the optional speed control, finding that the available power, easy acceleration and whisper-quiet ride could put you well over the speed limit without realizing it.
After a one-year absence, Ghia's limousine returned, priced at $18,500; 13 were built, each for the cost of two Cadillac Fleetwood limousines or one nice, furnished three-bedroom split-level ranch with two-car garage on a one-acre lot. Regular Crown sales were essentially identical to the year before, but now it really would be Engel's turn.
Unlike the rest of the Chrysler line, Imperial styling was all-new for 1964. The body-on frame, 129-inch wheelbase and 413 engine combination endured, but the Engel touch was obvious in the exterior, which some have likened to his previous work on the 1961 Lincoln Continental: crisp, with beautiful flat-sided front fenders. The clean lines made the car, particularly the elegant Crown coupe, appear angular, long and low. The rear-end design featured a full-width jet-age treatment with marquee "Imperial" script about a foot wide, above. The eager and unbroken fender line was topped with a high-quality chrome strip, echoed by bright rocker panel moldings and window surrounds on hardtops.
With this off-year change, Imperial suddenly became distinctively different from any other Mopar, and Chrysler could now position the $5,718 Crown coupe as a personal luxury car in the mold of the Riviera or Thunderbird. The dash was new, but still extravagant, and the TorqueFlite still had pushbutton controls, but a conventional round steering wheel replaced the unloved square version. The Crown convertible's "aircraft-style" pleated leather seats had headrests that you could remove and store, and options included dual air conditioning and power door locks.
Chrysler retired the slow-selling "base" Custom Imperials, with the Crown model taking over everything except the exclusive LeBaron trim level and Ghia limousine. With Custom and Crown four-door versions rolled into a single model, production numbers are cloudy, but 1964 Crown four-door sales were much better than combined Crown and Custom numbers for 1963, and convertible sales nearly doubled to 922 cars.
McCahill tested another 5,000-pound Imperial LeBaron coupe in Mechanix Illustrated and, despite having the same drivetrain as the 1960-'63 Imperials, found it faster in every respect. He took it up to 118.2 MPH at Daytona and saw an exceptional 9.2-second 0-60 time. As in the last few years, huge, flared 11x3-inch drum brakes stopped hard, at least the first time you tried it. He did complain about getting "only" 16 MPG, worse than the 1963 version he tested, so it's possible Chrysler had worked a little magic on his test car. Whatever the car's state of tune, McCahill did 7,000 miles of testing in four weeks and he said he'd "never found anything quite as comfortable or more capable" than the 1964 Imperial, "the closest man has come to building a drive-it-yourself Beverly Hilton."
Motor Trend, in a Crown coupe optioned to over $7,000, recorded 12.2 seconds in the 0-60 run and an 18.4 second quarter-mile at 78 MPH, and still others found 0-60 times in the low 10s. One memorable photograph shows Motor Trend's Imperial with all four wheels high off the ground on the crest of a hill. "Driving comfort was all anyone could possibly ask of an automobile," they wrote, and praised the car's stability in landing from jumps at 109 MPH!
Low production, not just of the Imperial but Chrysler as a whole, saw the Imperial use the 1964 bodies for three full model years. Minor refinements for the 1965 model year included a crosshair grille similar to the Chrysler 300, with four round headlamps in a rectangular bezel with glass cover, and a conventionally column-shifted TorqueFlite. Formerly optional features such as power vent windows became standard and the standard leather interior was dressed up with 100-year-old walnut trim surrounding an elegant and usable dash. The venerable 413 V-8 was tuned for better economy but retained its 340hp/470-lbs.ft. rating. That, at least, would change the following year.
While Chrysler as a whole did well in 1965, it was a flat year for Imperial sales: Cadillac was all-new and Lincoln received the biggest styling changes in years, while proportions that dated to 1957 and a wraparound windshield made the Imperial appear dated to contemporary eyes.
Sales crashed, and Chrysler had trouble selling 15,000 Crowns. Despite the company's commitment to quality materials and a dedicated quality control team, buyers complained that fit and finish were not the equal of the Ford and GM luxury makes. The good news for buyers was that the sales troubles meant big deals were on hand: The Crown two-door, now called the Crown Coupe, had a list price of $5,846, but you could easily get a dealer to agree to $4,999. At that level, Imperial was competitive against a well-optioned New Yorker two-door hardtop, but the rivalry posed no threat to the Chrysler-badged car.
1966 was a last hurrah for the traditional Crown Imperial. Over the previous years, the rest of the Chrysler line had moved ever farther away from the body-on-frame Imperial, and this would be the last model before they, too, switched to unitized construction. But borrowing from those cars, Imperial finally got a new engine, the New Yorker's mighty 350hp, 440-cu.in. V-8. Now with 480-lbs.ft. of torque, the most noticeable improvement was in the car's easier highway passing ability, but the Crown's low engine noise and vibration, already class-leading, improved as well. Styling changes were confined to a new crosshatched grille and elimination of the 1965 model's false Continental spare tire hump. Perhaps it was thanks to the wiggle room available on retail prices, but the average Crown was still heavily optioned. Almost all had the seriously cold air conditioning installed, while two-thirds enjoyed Spanish scrolled leather upholstery instead of standard broadcloth on their split front bench seats, usually with six-way power adjustment.
This was also the final year for the Crown limousine. Chrysler's contract with Ghia had ended, but Ghia sold the tooling to Barreiros of Spain, which built a further 10 examples in 1966 for European consumption on 1965 chassis. In America, Stageway of Fort Smith, Arkansas, would build you one badged as a LeBaron.
At the Chicago Auto Show, Chrysler showed a rear command center for the Crown coupe. Called the Mobile Executive, this office on wheels included a pair of custom front and rear consoles, with a multi-position folding table in front of the rear passenger seat. Equipment included a Stewart-Warner Datafax; two-way radiotelephone; ultrabright reading lamp; office supply cabinet with a typewriter; and small television. The front passenger seat swiveled 180 degrees to create a cozy suite. Incredibly, Mobile Director, as it was called, became a $597.40 option on 1967 Crown Coupes (costing less than the dual-unit A/C option).
Finally, after a decade of largely incremental change on a virtually unchanged platform, the 1967 Imperial was an all-new car. With the carryover 440 V-8, the body switched to a 127-inch-wheelbase unitized chassis with front and rear subframes and front disc brakes; the cars were three inches shorter overall, at a mere 224.7 inches. Coming along with the new structure were completely new exterior body panels, now very much in keeping with styling from the competing models. Many changes to the lineup came with the physical differences; most notably, the convertible disappeared from the Crown line. A four-door post sedan returned as part of the one-year-only Imperial Series, while the Crown was available in two-and four-door hardtops. Considerably larger than a Cadillac or Lincoln, this was the first time Imperial shared more than a drivetrain with other Chryslers, but the Crown retained its trademark quality interior and innumerable thoughtful touches, such as an extra door handle for rear seat occupants of coupes (with electrically sliding "Door Stretcher" seats to ease egress further), and clever storage cubbies throughout. But the sizzle was fading, as the earlier bejeweled dash and extravagant front- and rear-end treatments became echoes of a Chrysler 300. Imperial's length and stance still made the cars unmistakable, but even these were unmistakably Chrysler.
A horizontal grille on the 1968 Imperial makes it easy to differentiate from the 1967 model, but you'd have to pay close attention to the side moldings to tell them apart from behind. Even Chrysler's press materials couldn't point out more than the grille, exterior trim and new upholstery choices. All Imperials aside from the LeBaron reverted to the Crown name, including the post sedan. Imperial's first performance engine option appeared, the "440 Dual" with twin snorkel air cleaner and dual exhausts.
Chrysler's precipitous and seemingly bottomless decline in quality was immediately apparent, however, in the multitudes of owners who experienced glitches with the complex electrical system, leaks, cracks, bad paint and sloppy interior assembly. In a Popular Mechanics survey, a horrifying 46.1 percent experienced mechanical failures in their new Imperials, while more than a third reported factory assembly and other workmanship problems. Little wonder that production dropped once again; most buyers were repeat customers who came back on the strength of the quality of earlier models.
Even as Imperial became even closer to the rest of the full-sized Chryslers, its size grew back to luxury car proportions in the 1969 models: 229.7 inches long. Fortunately, the fuselage styling worked well on the huge Imperials, which Car and Driver called "easily the most attractive Imperial in this decade." Sadly, the convertible model was gone and LeBaron was no longer considered its own model, but the design was an enormous sales success. Crowns, in sedan and two- and four-door hardtops, were far more rare. Hidden headlamps and windshield wipers contributed to a smooth look up front, and the 1969 Chrysler's lovely, sharply raked rear glass only emphasized how sleek it was; however, interior room in the rear of the coupe declined dramatically, to the point where it was functionally a 19.5-foot-long two-seater. Rear passengers in four-door models still had first class room. Ultraviolet "floodlight" illumination caused the dash to glow brightly, a polarizing feature.
Build quality still put the Chrysler a distant third behind the immaculate Lincoln Continental and Cadillac Coupe de Ville, but in one area, at least, the Imperial Crown was inarguably without peer: It was the best-handling big car on the road, and even seasoned road testers were surprised to find themselves serenely cruising far above the legal limit. Maneuvering the great ship around town can be nerve-wracking, but 10 hours on the highway pass without a care, and it will corner surprisingly flat and with aplomb, no doubt thanks to its torsion bar front suspension.
The popularity of LeBaron trim and lousy sales for all cars made 1970 the Imperial Crown's final year, and seeing any Crown on the road is incredibly uncommon today. In some years, comparable Cadillac de Villes outsold Imperial Crowns by 30 to one, or more. Despite their luxury trappings and high retail price, their size, complexity and thirst sent many Crowns to the salvage yards in the Seventies. As their values declined, owners who drove Crowns in the winter found they rusted at least as fast as lesser automobiles, while their expensive décor and complicated wiring made them much more expensive to repair. The factory offered a superb five-year, 50,000-mile warranty on Imperial Crowns, but when that was through, often so were the cars.
Imperial styling was sometimes far behind the curve and made the car irrelevant to some buyers, but time has put the Crowns into perspective. Aside from convertibles, few Sixties-era Imperial Crowns command more than $20,000, and quality fuselage-era cars can be half of that. Chrysler's limited resources meant Imperial design was evolutionary and stayed true to a classic ideal, and as a remarkable throwback to the luxury cars of the Classic era, there's nothing else like them at any price.
Imperial Crown Production

Produced

Cost

1960

Four door-sedan

1,594

$5,647

Southampton four-door

4,510

$5,647

Southampton two-door

1,504

$5,403

Convertible

618

$5,684

Ghia limousine

16

$16,000

1961

Southampton four-door

4,769

$5,647

Southampton two-door

1,007

$5,403

Convertible

429

$5,744

Ghia limousine

9

$16,000

1962

Southampton four-door

6,911

$5,644

Southampton two-door

1,010

$5,400

Convertible

544

$5,770

1963

Southampton four-door

6,960

$5,656

Southampton two-door

1,067

$5,412

Convertible

531

$5,782

Ghia limousine

13

$18,500

1964

Four-door

14,181

$5,581

Two-door

5,233

$5,739

Convertible

922

$6,003

Ghia limousine

10

$18,500

1965

Four-door

11,628

$5,691

Two-door

3,974

$5,846

Convertible

633

$6,105

Ghia limousine

10

1966

Four-door

8,977

$5,733

Two-door

2,373

$5,887

Convertible

514

$6,146

Barreiros limousine

10

$16,000

1967

Four-door

9,415

$5,836

Two-door

3,235

$6,011

Convertible

N/A

N/A

1968

Four-door sedan

1,887

$5,654

Four-door

8,492

$6,115

Two-door

2,656

$5,722

Convertible

474

$6,497

1969

Four-door sedan

1,617

$5,770

Four-door

15,644*

$5,770

Two-door

4,816*

$5,952

*No breakout for LeBaron and Crown available

This article originally appeared in the September, 2011 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.